Your name's Chong? You must speak Chinese

Liberal Eleni Evangel's win over John Hyde in the seat of Perth in the weekend's state election came as a surprise to some but for one constituent, it was Ms Evangel's campaign material that provided the biggest shock.

Ms Evangel won the seat from Mr Hyde who had held it since 2001 but she did not win any support from Perth woman, Kerry Jacobs.

You will now receive updates fromNews Update Newsletter

News Update Newsletter

She said she initially had no idea what the letter said as she could not even tell if the language was Mandarin - all she knew was that it was Chinese.

"My parents have been here since the 70s and my dad has never received anything like this," she said.

Mrs Jacobs said she was bothered by an assumption she was from a certain background based on her last name or appearance.

Although a Vietnamese neighbour who received a letter in Vietnamese did not appear to be offended about his letter when he spoke to Mrs Jacobs about it, he agreed his correspondence must also have been tailored to his surname.

"She [Ms Evangel] may have been told that because this is a culturally diverse area, it would work to her advantage," Mrs. Jacobs said.

But she pointed out that she would prefer to see Ms Evangel out at Chinese New Year celebrations and taking part in cultural events rather than sending letters in different languages based on assumptions.

Ms Evangel said letters were sent out in Chinese, Vietnamese and Serbian languages.

"Community leaders recommended doing this as there are some people in the area who aren't so fluent in English," she said.

Ms Evangel said members of culturally diverse community groups identified people with names they thought were from certain backgrounds from the electoral roll and would therefore speak certain languages.

However she said most of the foreign language letters were sent out with an accompanying version in English.

"There was a hiccup in the office and one set of letters was sent out without the English translation," Ms Evangel said.

"It's a shame because it was a bit of a slip-up during the hectic lead up to the election."

Ms Evangel said she received a small handful of complaint letters about the matter but many more "thank yous."

She said she had meant well by sending the letters in different languages.

"I'm of Greek background, my mum's been here 50 years, she can communicate in English, but there's no way she'd be able to read something like that [a letter in English]. We read it and explain it to her," Mrs Evangel said.

Those who did not receive the English version of the letter were sent it about a week after the first letters were sent out, Ms Evangel said.

Ms Evangel did not say whether any further material that she sent out to constituents would be done in a similar fashion.

"For now I'm concentrating in getting setup, which will take a couple of weeks, there is so much to do," she said.